


you never notice you are blind

by mansgotalimit



Category: Oasis (Band), Real Person Fiction
Genre: 5+1 Things, Anal Sex, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:06:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26325352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mansgotalimit/pseuds/mansgotalimit
Summary: Alan’s not entirely sure when he really notices something’s up, but the first time he can remember catching a glimpse of it is in Glasgow.-five times alan thinks he catches something between noel and liam, and one time he definitely does
Relationships: Liam Gallagher/Noel Gallagher
Comments: 11
Kudos: 67





	you never notice you are blind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OnTheWrongSideOfTheBed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnTheWrongSideOfTheBed/gifts).



> nobody come for me for having a grand total of 10 fics 3 of which are now named after lyrics from sister lover it's just a song full of title-able lyrics 
> 
> this fic seriously owes its entire life to the absolute angel that is [OnTheWrongSideOfTheBed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnTheWrongSideOfTheBed/pseuds/OnTheWrongSideOfTheBed) seriously the birth of this fic can literally be summarised as follows:  
> me: i have this idea and it would be great as a 5+1 fic but i only have one idea  
> onthewrongsideofthebed: please write that  
> me: well come up with five more ideas for me then 
> 
> and of course she came through how could we ever doubt that then it was just on me to turn her brilliant ideas into something...well. into something. i'll leave it at that however i hope it's a something that she can enjoy since she provides endless light and joy to my days the least i can do is a little indulgent filth in return 
> 
> this is my first ever outsider perspective fic and also my first ever 5+1 fic which is insane for someone who's so keen on tropes but anyway please be gentle x

**1.**

Alan’s not entirely sure when he really notices something’s up, but the first time he can remember catching a glimpse of it is in Glasgow.

They’re all crowded together in a cramped backstage room - the one that was designated the ‘chill-out room’, which all of them interpreted as ‘drugs and booze room’ - and there are at least four different conversations going on at once. Guigs and Tony are arguing loudly about which of them is the one fucking up the tempo on Whatever, Bonehead’s leant over the side of the sofa and calling something about re-stringing his guitar to the roadie that just walked in, Marcus is trying to say something to Alan that the coke in Alan’s veins won’t let him take in, and Noel and Liam are yelling at each other about whether or not Liam’s drunk. Alan doesn’t think anything of it as he nods along to whatever Marcus is saying, hoping that he’s taking some of it in subconsciously while his mind wanders to thinking about where he’s going to get his drugs from tonight. It’s just a normal Thursday night.

The door slams open and Maggie walks in, so focused on the piece of paper in her hand that she doesn’t seem to have realised what she’s walked into, already four steps into the room before a particularly loud _eeyar, what the fuck d’you mean-_ from Liam makes her look up sharply at the assorted drunk or high (or, in Alan’s case, both) men shouting at each other in front of her. She eyes them all in trepidation for a moment, then simply turns on her heel and walks out again. The shouting doesn’t stop, though, as only Alan, Marcus, and Bonehead, who seems to have finished yelling at the roadie, appear to notice her come and go. Bonehead cackles, glassy eyes glinting with something Alan thinks is probably drunken amusement, and leans back on the sofa as Marcus frowns. 

“Hang on, where’s she going?” Marcus says, pointing at the door with the can of lager in his hand. “She’s got the new tour dates. Someone get her back in.” 

“You get her back in,” Bonehead fires back. “Aren’t you our manager?” 

“Not her manager, though, am I?” 

“Who’s whose manager?” Guigsy asks, even as Tony keeps indignantly saying something about  _ -my snares, alright, not my fault that Liam fucking speeds up.  _

“I’m everyone’s manager,” Noel announces grandly, breaking off from the fierce little spat he’s embroiled in to make a sweeping hand gesture at all of them, and Liam scowls at him, probably mainly because Noel’s attention is no longer entirely focused on him. 

“You can’t manage fucking anything,” Bonehead tells him derisively. 

“I manage to pay all your fucking bills, don’t I?” Noel says, shoving two fingers up at him. 

“Maggie!” Alan yells, figuring it’s probably best to just take things into his own hands, because everyone else is more interested in bickering with each other than sorting out their fucking careers. “Magg-” 

“What?” an annoyed voice says, and the door opens again to reveal a harassed-looking Maggie. “Are you fucking done?” 

“Give us the tour list,” Marcus says, holding a hand out. Maggie narrows her eyes at him for a moment, but then sighs, stalks over and presses the piece of paper she’d been holding into his hands.

“Don’t fucking lose it,” she warns, and Marcus rolls his eyes, holds his hands up in a  _ Jesus, get off my case _ sort of way. 

“C’mon, Maggie,” Bonehead says, raising his can of lager at her. “You love us, really.” Maggie arches an eyebrow, but Alan can see the small, exasperated smile playing at her lips. 

“Do I?” she says. 

“‘Course you do,” Liam says confidently, leaning back against the sofa and swigging from his beer. “We’re brothers and sisters, we are.” 

“Sister,” Noel corrects, because he can’t let a single thing Liam says or does slide, ever. “Or are you including yourself?” 

“Get fucked,” Liam tells him, but there’s a flash of gleeful anger in his eyes, that heady excitement Liam gets when he’s handed the fight he’s been spoiling for. Even through the haze of intoxication, Alan can sense that it’s something to keep an eye on, something to watch in case Noel decides he’s in the mood to fan the flames that are licking at his little brother’s bright blue irises.

“You wish,” Marcus puts in, almost idly, scanning the piece of paper in his hand.

“That’s incest, that is,” Bonehead says, pointing at Marcus with his beer, and Alan’s too slow looking away from Liam to catch the reason for the squawk that follows.

What he does see, though, is Liam and Noel’s gazes flit from Bonehead to each other. It’s brief, the tiniest of looks, but it’s something so unmistakably private, something instinctive, some kind of shared thought locking their eyes together for a split second before they force themselves to look away again, north and south pushed too close together by Bonehead’s words to stay apart.

He’s seen this happen before. Noel and Liam - by virtue of being brothers, Alan reckons - are on some strange wavelength, like they’ve found a secret frequency that no one else can tune into. It’s not something that he sees often - it’s rare that the brothers are doing anything that isn’t laughing hysterically with pinprick pupils or spitting vitriol at each other with sparkling eyes - but he’s caught it enough to recognise it. Sometimes it’s a tiny little glance across a room, one that’s saturated with so many different emotions that even if Alan were sober, he wouldn’t be able to pick them apart, or sometimes a split-second of eye contact on stage that’s followed by the two of them turning away from each other in tandem. It’s weird that it happens at the mention of incest, Alan thinks, raising his can of lager to his lips, but whatever. They’ve fucking done weirder things, and it’s soon forgotten when Marcus swears loudly and says _Jesus Christ, Bonehead,_ and Alan looks over to see him shaking out the list of tour dates, now covered in beer.

“Maggie’s going to fucking kill you,” Liam says cheerfully, and Alan snorts, and finishes the rest of his lager. 

\-------

**2.**

Clubs aren’t exactly Alan’s favourite place to be, but it’s sort of an occupational hazard, working so closely with Oasis. 

Plus, he thinks, grimacing as someone knocks into him and makes his beer slosh over his hand, they’re fine if you’re drunk or high, which Alan intends to be as soon as possible. He’s already there on the drunk front, and Noel’s got a bag of coke on him that he’d offered Alan a share of a few hours ago, so Alan’s trying to weave his way through the dancefloor, craning his neck in an attempt to spot a short, angry-looking Mancunian in the midst of the drugged-up rich kids that are swaying in time to the shite music. If only the fucker weren’t five foot tall, Alan thinks, taking a few gulps of his beer as he snakes between a group of awkward-looking boys and a cluster of uncomfortable-looking girls. He’s fucking impossible to find. 

He makes it all the way to the other side of the dancefloor without spotting Noel, and thinks maybe he’s already headed to the toilets without waiting for Alan to get back from the bar - sounds like something Noel would do - so he forces his way through a large group of very drunk people without so much as a  _ sorry,  _ taking another swig from his beer as he shoulders the door to the grimy men’s toilets open.

“Noel!” he yells, and he hears an exasperated sigh from one of the cubicles.  _ Got him, _ Alan thinks gleefully, as he spins on his heel, trying to find the source of the noise. “What, you thought you could snort it all without me?” 

“Yeah,” Noel says, sounding annoyed. “And I will. Fuck off.” 

“That’s not a very nice way to speak to your boss,” Alan says, staggering over to the cubicle he thinks Noel’s in and knocking on the door. 

“Who pays your bills?” Noel says, sounding mildly incensed. 

“Who pays yours?” Alan counters, even though it doesn't make much sense, and knocks again, more insistently this time. “Let me in, you cunt.” There’s another sigh, protracted and long-suffering, but it’s followed by the sound of a lock clicking and the door of the cubicle to the left of the one Alan’s been knocking on opening, and Noel stepping out. 

Followed by Liam. 

“You were going to share with him, but not me?” Alan says, a little indignantly, and Liam grins inanely, swaying on the spot. Noel doesn’t look too good either, has to fold his arms and lean back against the divider between the cubicles to steady himself, but his eyes aren’t unfocused like Liam’s. They look angry, actually, filled to the brim with cold fury that’s matched by the way Noel’s mouth is set in an irate scowl. Jesus, Alan thinks, using what’s left of his sobriety to suppress a snort. Trust Noel to fly into an icy rage over being interrupted in the middle of taking coke. 

“He was here first,” Noel says, with a small, tight shrug. 

“He’s s’posed to be in the studio singing at ten,” Alan says, and Noel throws him a glower. 

“You’re supposed to be managing a fucking record label at ten,” he shoots back, which is sort of fair enough. 

“My record label, though,” Alan counters, and Noel raises an eyebrow. 

“Not according to your contracts with Sony,” he says, and his voice is cool and even, which makes Alan frown. He can’t be  _ that _ annoyed about Alan interrupting his fucking coke-snorting; he’d offered Alan some of it earlier, after all. Alan’s just ensuring Noel makes good on that promise. Calling Noel out on not keeping his word doesn’t seem to be working, though, so Alan decides to change tack. 

“He’s too drunk for it, anyway,” he says, nodding in Liam’s direction. “Be a fucking waste of coke.” Noel’s eyes don’t leave Alan, don’t even flicker to his brother, who’s standing there with glassy eyes and slightly-parted, oddly-spit-slick lips. 

“‘S my coke,” Liam says, and Alan turns to frown at him. It definitely fucking isn’t - Noel had held the little bag up at him earlier, waved it in his face and said  _ give you some of it later  _ before tucking it back into his pocket.

“No, it’s not,” he says, brow furrowed. “It’s Noel’s.” Liam just grins at him, and there’s a slight twinkle in his glazed eyes, a hint of something mischievous, like he knows something Alan doesn’t know. 

“It was mine first,” Liam says, his words curling around a smile. “He had to earn it.” That finally makes Noel look at him, throw him a sharp look that Alan’s too drunk to interpret. He doesn’t care enough to, anyway, just wants the fucking coke he knows is on Noel’s person somewhere. 

“Just give us a few lines,” Alan says, and Noel’s gaze flicks back to Alan, eyes narrowed and lips drawn into a tight line, like he’s trying to weigh up hoarding his drugs against getting Alan to piss off. Alan just waits it out, knows Noel well enough to know that if he dares try and push him either way he’ll find a third option just to be contrary, and eventually Noel sighs, and unfolds his arms.

“Fine,” he says curtly, and reaches into his jeans pocket, fumbling around for a moment, and when he pulls his hand out again, it’s clutching a little bag of white powder. He tosses it over to Alan, who catches it with deft, greedy fingers, and digs around in his own pockets for the tenner he knows he left in there for this specific purpose and the card he’d paid for his beer with. 

“No more than three lines,” Noel warns, as Alan pushes past him into the cubicle and kneels down on the dirty floor. “And make them thin.” Alan rolls his eyes, but makes a show of shaking out the tiniest amount of coke he thinks will be acceptable to himself and the most that will be acceptable to Noel, raising his eyebrows at Noel as he cuts it into long, thin lines on the lid of the toilet, as if to say _happy?_ Noel just looks at him impassively, watches as he rolls up his tenner and gets the coke up his nose, as he pinches the end of his nose, rocks back on his heels and inhales deeply, staring up at the ceiling, then swipes up what’s left of the powder from the toilet seat on his beer-stained fingers and gums the rest of it. The coke he’s snorted is just starting to drip down his throat, and the bitterness of it still makes him wince as he gets to his feet a little unsteadily, dusting himself off and stumbling out of the cubicle again. He grins at Noel as he presses the little bag back into his hands, and then sighs contentedly as the familiar buzz starts to prickle at his veins, starts to fizzle in his eyeballs. 

“Don’t snort it all at once,” he says happily as he heads for the door, and Noel rolls his eyes as he tucks the bag back into the pocket of his jeans. His shirt lifts a little on one side as he does, riding up enough to expose a sliver of his stomach, and the dim light overhead catches his abdomen, highlights the sharp jut of his hipbone and the dark hair above the waistband of his underwear, and the outline of his cock straining against his jeans. 

Well, Alan thinks, drunkenly diplomatic, as he wrenches the door open and heads back into the bar. It happens to the best of them on coke, doesn’t it? 

(It doesn’t strike him until a few days later that the bag Noel had handed him had been full.) 

\-------

**3.**

This is  _ not _ his fucking job, Alan thinks, as he stomps up the stairs in the studio they’re staying in. What the fuck is Marcus there for, if not to  _ manage? _ Alan shouldn’t be the one running around trying to find this or that guitar, this or that amp, this or that band member.

“Noel!” he bellows, before he’s even made it up to the landing. “Get the fuck downstairs. You’re supposed to be recording a fucking  _ album. _ I’m not paying for you to fucking kip.” There’s no response, which just makes Alan more irate - Jesus Christ, it’s fucking two in the afternoon and Noel’s a twenty-seven year old man; there’s no fucking reason for him to still be in bed. He doesn’t even bother knocking on Noel’s door when he gets there - doesn’t think he’s earnt himself the privilege - just slams it open, a string of carefully-curated curse words and insults lined up on his tongue, but they get caught in his throat when he sees the scene in front of him. 

Noel, slightly flushed, legs spread, sheets half-on, half-off the bed, cock in one hand, unopened magazine in the other. 

Jesus Christ.

“Jesus  _ fucking _ Christ,” Noel spits, and reaches for the sheets as Alan’s mind catches up to his eyes and he swears loudly and averts his gaze. Fucking hell. “Don’t you fucking knock?” 

“I yelled your fucking name,” Alan says, covering his eyes with one hand as he waits for the rustling on the bed to end so he can fucking look at Noel again, although he’s not entirely sure he’ll ever be able to look him in the eye again. 

“Fucking get out,” Noel bites out. “And learn to fucking  _ knock, _ you cunt.”

“I didn’t know-”

“Jesus, get  _ out, _ what the fuck are you still doing in here?” 

“You’re needed downstairs,” Alan says, and turns on his heel to head out of the room. 

“I’ll be down when I’m fucking down,” Noel says, and Alan closes the door behind him as swiftly as possible, doesn’t have it in him to argue.

He hopes the kitchen has bleach, and that someone has an eye dropper. 

\-------

Alan doesn’t think about it again until a few days later. 

He’s cleaning up after the band, who had descended upon the living room in a whirlwind of shouting and laughter after a trip to the pub for dinner before returning to it all of an hour later for more drinks to numb the boredom of being in the middle of fucking nowhere in Wales, leaving a trail of empty bottles and cigarette butts and half-eaten crisp packets in their wake. Fucking hell, Alan thinks, grimacing as he shoves yet another suspiciously-soggy bag of salt and vinegar crisps into the bin bag he’s carrying. He would never have signed the cunts if he’d known ‘being a mum’ would suddenly be amongst the duties of running a record label.

He sweeps a bunch of bottles into the bin bag, wincing as he hears one of them shatter - that had better not cut the bin liner - and is just about to put the magazine they’d been resting on in the bag too when something makes him stop and frown.

He’s sure he’s seen this magazine before. Well, he knows he must have seen it before, because it’s a magazine with Liam on the front and the whole office always buys a copy whenever one of those comes out, but it looks more familiar than that. He picks it up, narrowing his eyes at the glossy photo on the cover, sifting through memories as he tries to find the one this features in. Was he at the photoshoot, maybe? No, he can’t remember anything that looked remotely like this. Maybe it was the first time Liam had been on the cover of this particular magazine? No, it’s NME, he’s graced their front page more times than Alan thinks he deserves. Well, maybe Alan had-

And then it hits him. 

This is the magazine Noel had had clutched in one hand when Alan had burst into his room the other day. The one that he’d been staring at with pink cheeks, parted lips, and his hard cock in his other hand. 

Something about that makes Alan’s stomach curl in on itself. What the fuck was Noel doing staring at a picture of Liam while he had a hand on his dick? No, what the fuck is Alan thinking, he can’t have been doing that, can he? He must have been looking at something else, Alan thinks, eyes flitting across the front of the magazine, searching for what Noel must have been looking at. His gaze keeps coming back to Liam’s eyes, though, dark and blue and heavy-lidded, lashes half-lowered in an expression that, if Alan looks at it in the right light, looks almost hungry, grey-blue tinged with something that  _ could _ be lust. Liam’s always known how to play up to a camera, how to tilt his head in just the right way to look effortlessly beautiful, but this photo’s got something different, an edge of something that looks a little too real to be just playing to the camera. The idea of Noel seeing that look sends a shiver down Alan’s spine and makes a visceral discomfort ring loud and shrill in his mind, so he tears his eyes away from Liam’s frozen gaze and forces himself to inspect the rest of the cover again.

A tiny sentence jumps out at him this time - _SPICE GIRLS: The Life of Spice_ \- and Alan finds his stomach uncurling a little, his heart unclenching, his lungs loosening as he relaxes again. That must be it, he thinks. The Spice Girls are fit, aren’t they? At least, the ginger one is. Noel must have just been getting started, probably hadn’t had the opportunity to turn to the page with her on yet. 

Yeah, Alan thinks, a little determinedly, rolling the magazine up so he doesn’t have to stare at Liam’s hooded eyes anymore. That must have been it.

(It’s still not quite enough to fully quell the queasiness in his stomach, so he shoves the magazine into the bin bag with more force than strictly necessary.) 

\-------

**4.**

There are few things more annoying than a drunk Liam. 

A childish, petulant Liam is one of them, but that only ever really becomes a problem when Noel’s tired of entertaining himself by pushing at his buttons, unleashing Liam’s juvenile nature on the rest of them. An angry Liam is another, but Alan usually doesn’t have to deal with that, can usually slip away as the yelling gets louder and louder and make it to the end of the corridor before he hears something smash. A bored Liam is up there, too, but that’s definitely not Alan’s responsibility; it’s easy to fob him off onto someone who knows how to deal with him, or someone who’s paid to deal with him.

The problem with a drunk Liam, though, is that he’s completely unpredictable. Sometimes he’s happy and bubbly, laughing more in the space of a few hours than Alan thinks he’s seen sober Liam laugh in the space of the past year; sometimes he’s sullen and sulky, snapping at anyone who dares come within a two metre radius of him; and sometimes, on very rare occasions, he’s a fucking  _ flirt. _

He’s been at it all evening, batting his eyelashes at the waitresses serving their table, letting his lips part in that way that shows off just how full and pink they really are, spreading his legs and sitting back in his chair so his lap and torso are on full display and winking at everyone who dares get within six feet of him. Noel’s been getting more and more frustrated with his ridiculous antics, going from glaring at Liam once every twenty minutes to once every ten, every five, every two, until it’s every thirty fucking seconds, and Alan’s still sober enough for the alarm bells in his mind to sound as the gap between Noel’s glares gets shorter and shorter, making him keep his eye on the two of them while he talks lightly with Tony. He’s just quietly monitoring them as he sips his drink, nodding along to whatever Tony’s saying about his girlfriend back home, watching out of the corner of his eye as Liam shifts, drapes an arm across the back of his chair, the movement making his shirt ride up a little bit. He watches Noel’s eyes flit down to the tiny sliver of Liam’s skin that’s exposed now, watches his eyes narrow and his jaw clench, watches Liam’s eyes light up with a wicked glint, and thinks _oh, fucking hell, Noel’s going to kick off about his inability to behave,_ but Noel doesn’t. He just throws Liam the filthiest look Alan thinks he’s ever seen, something between furious and contemptuous, and grips his empty bottle of beer so hard his knuckles go white.

“I’m going to the loo,” Liam announces, out of the blue, sets his still-half-full bottle down on the table and gets to his feet. Alan almost lets out a sigh of relief - whatever he’s going to do in the toilet, it can’t be half as bad as the potential consequences of him staying here and riling Noel up further - and turns his full attention back to Tony, really listening to the story of how he and his girlfriend met, this time. He’s so focused on the tale that he barely even notices that Noel doesn’t chime into the conversation with his usual derisive remarks - barely even notices that he doesn’t chime into the conversation at all, actually, just sits there clutching his empty bottle of beer - until Noel suddenly scrapes his chair back, and says: “I’m going to get another drink.” 

Alan just throws him a quick glance and nod before turning back to Tony, oddly intrigued by his story about how his girlfriend had punched the bouncer that had been trying to kick him out of the pub. It takes him about fifteen minutes to tell, because he keeps breaking off on tangents to say things like _y’know, I used to play drums for a band at that pub-_ but Alan nudges him back on track, wanting to hear exactly how and why she ended up needing to punch a bouncer on Tony’s behalf. It’s not until Tony’s almost at the climax of the story that Alan thinks _hang on a minute,_ and stops him mid-sentence to ask: “How tall’s your missus, then?” Tony grins. 

“Five-three,” he says, and Alan can’t help but laugh at the image of this tiny woman trying to beat up a bouncer on Tony’s behalf. 

“Couldn’t do it yourself?” he says teasingly, and Tony scowls, but it’s good-natured. 

“Value my good looks too much for that,” he says. “And so does she. Probably why she put herself in the firing line.” 

“What, to spare your good looks?” Alan says, arching an eyebrow. “What the fuck does she look like, then, Phil Collins?” Tony makes a noise of outrage, and starts off with a _you prick, she’s actually proper fucking fit, y’know-_ but is interrupted by a loud, satisfied sigh from their left as Liam plonks himself back into his seat.

“Alright?” he says, smiling brightly. He looks a little sweatier than before, cheeks a little pinker and eyes lit up with something mellow, happy and hazy, and Alan thinks  _ fuck, should’ve gone with him, shouldn’t I? ‘Course the fucker had drugs on him. _ “Tony telling you about his fake girlfriend again?” 

“Fuck off,” Tony says, raising his beer to his lips. “She’s not fake, you cunt. You’ve met her.” 

“Have I?” Liam says flippantly, and reaches forward for Alan’s drink. Alan’s too quick for him, though - probably the drugged-up afterglow Liam seems to be in - and bats his sly fingers away, moving his drink into the safety of his own hand. 

“Get your own fucking drink,” he says, and Liam pouts a little, but his eyes are still sparkling with amusement. 

“Give us some money, then,” Liam says, and Alan rolls his eyes and flips him off. It just makes Liam laugh, eyes crinkling around the corners as he grins at Alan, and Alan thinks _fucking hell, coke doesn’t usually get him this happy, what the fuck’s he taken and how do I get some of it?_ Before he has a chance to say anything, though, Noel’s re-appeared, smiling at Alan as he slides into his seat.

“What’s so funny?” he asks, unsettlingly jovial. He looks relaxed, like the spring in him that Liam’s been coiling tighter and tighter all night has sprung somehow, all the tension Alan had been eyeing warily completely drained from his body as he leans back in his chair. His lips look a little redder than they had been twenty minutes ago, and his cheeks are a little pink, too, even though he’s only wearing a t-shirt and hasn’t drunk nearly enough to be warm from the alcohol yet. Weird, Alan thinks, but it’s not as weird as the soft warmth in his eyes, something Alan doesn’t think he’s seen in Noel more than a handful of times in the whole year-and-a-half that he’s known him. 

“Your little brother’s trying to scrounge off me,” Alan informs him, and Noel shoots Liam an amused look. 

“Sounds like him,” he says, but there’s no heat to his words, just a hint of affection. Liam grins happily, leaning into Noel’s space a little more than Noel would usually let him, but this time Noel just shakes his head, a strangely fond smile playing at his lips. 

“‘S he told you about the time his bird got off with a girl ‘cause she thought it was Tony?” Bonehead says suddenly, and Alan tears his gaze away from the brothers when he realises it was addressed to him, a surprised laugh bubbling out of him. 

“No,” he says, glancing at Tony, who’s scowling. “Kept that one to yourself, mate.” 

“Fuck off,” Tony says, a little sullenly, and Bonehead’s eyes glitter as he launches into a story about some time they’d all been trollied in Glasgow. Alan’s listening, because it sounds like it’s going to be fucking funny, but he’s still got one eye on Noel and Liam, still tuned into them just in case, because this weird bliss between them is just fucking disconcerting. 

“Go on, then,” Noel’s saying, pushing his chair back again and digging in his pockets. “What d’you want?” 

“Two pints of Guinness,” Liam says, and Noel raises an eyebrow, clearly saying  _ two, you greedy cunt, you’ll be lucky if you get one without a clip round the ear, _ but Liam just blinks up at him, something beseeching mixing with something Alan can’t quite identify in his eyes. Noel holds his gaze for a moment, and Alan watches out of the corner of his eye in trepidation, because there’s never any telling which way it’s going to go with the two of them, but then Noel purses his lips and sighs. 

“Greedy cunt,” he says, and Liam just smiles serenely. “You’re lucky I’m going up for myself anyway.” That makes Alan frown, makes him think  _ hang on a minute, wasn’t Noel supposed to be getting one about twenty minutes ago?  _ He glances down at the table in front of Noel, frowning, and counts only the two empty beers that he’d brought back from the bar when he’d gone up with Alan minutes after they arrived. 

Weird, Alan thinks, as he turns back to Tony, who’s launched into an impassioned defence of his girlfriend’s apparently honest mistake. He wonders where else Noel could have gone for those twenty minutes, whether maybe he’d gone off to take whatever drugs Liam’s clearly on now, but when Guigsy mentions something about the time Tony had gone on a blind date with a bloke, he completely forgets to try and work out the answer to the equation of Liam and Noel disappearing and coming back looking flushed and fucked-out. 

In fact, the only evidence it had ever happened at all is a strange, uncomfortable whisper in his mind that he’s too tipsy to understand. 

\-------

**5.**

Liam is a man of many talents. 

He’s a fucking captivating storyteller, has an enchanting sense of humour, and can sing like fucking no one else on the scene at the moment. He’s a ball of unbridled chaos, the only one who can pull at Noel’s push and stop him pushing too far, and he can charm fucking anyone into thinking he’s not the world’s biggest cunt. 

He’s also, Alan thinks irritably, incredibly fucking good at disappearing when he wants to. 

Alan’s been trying to find him for about ten minutes, now, which is pushing the limits of his patience. He’s tried the hotel bar, the restaurant, the gents  _ and _ the ladies, phoned up to Bonehead and Guigsy’s room and to Tony’s, all to no avail. Noel’s nowhere to be found, either, but he’d mentioned something about going out guitar shopping about half an hour ago, so Alan hasn’t even bothered trying his room, but when the receptionist shrugs and says  _ sorry, sir, haven’t seen anyone matching that description, _ Alan thinks  _ fuck it,  _ turns on his heel and heads back for the phone in the lobby. 

He’s not expecting Noel to pick up - it’s wishful thinking more than anything, because Noel’s the only one who ever has an inkling where Liam is or could be - so when the dial tone cuts out with a click after four rings, he’s surprised. 

“What?” Noel says, sounding a little annoyed. 

“Have you seen Liam?” 

“Yeah.” Oh, well, fucking brilliant, Alan thinks, resting his forehead against the wall. Why the fuck is getting information out of Noel always like pulling fucking teeth? 

“Where is he?” There’s a short pause. 

“Sucking me off.” He sounds bored and irritated, and Alan wants to fucking punch him. He’s not in the mood for Noel’s sarcasm. 

“Where is he, Noel?” Alan says, as patiently and calmly as the frustration and coke in his veins will let him be. “He’s supposed to be doing an interview.” 

“He’ll be there in five minutes,” Noel says. Alan wants to argue, wants to say  _ no, he’ll fucking well be there right now, you tell me where the cunt is, _ but Noel’s clearly not in a generous mood and Alan can’t be arsed to fight him on it, not for the sake of five minutes and when he’s high as a kite, so he just sighs. 

“He’d fucking better be,” he warns, and hangs up before Noel has the chance to get some sharp final words in. Jesus Christ, he thinks, as he slams the receiver down. Maybe they should think about getting Liam a manager of his own. Well, one that isn’t Noel, anyway. 

He’s supposed to be taking a phone call in ten minutes himself, so he heads over to the lifts, waits patiently for the entire seventeen years it takes for one to get down and then again for the equal length of time it takes to trundle up to the second floor, and then jogs down the corridor to his room. They’ve taken over this entire half of the floor, and it’s painfully obvious; there are short, sharp bursts of guitar coming from Bonehead and Liam’s room every few minutes, and someone’s yelling loudly in Marcus’s room. Only Noel’s room, right next to Alan’s, is uncharacteristically quiet. Alan would almost think that Noel weren’t there if he hadn’t spoken to him on the phone all of five minutes ago. 

He’s patting his pockets, frowning as he tries to find his key, when he hears it. A breathy, choked-off moan from Noel’s room, one that he’s heard a few times before after Noel’s brought some brown-haired, blue-eyed groupie home. It makes Alan roll his eyes, makes him think  _ Jesus Christ, Noel, can’t keep it in your pants for half a fucking day, _ but that thought is swiftly pushed out of his mind as he pats his final pocket and realises he’s lost his fucking key. 

Brilliant, Alan thinks, turning on his heel and stomping back down the corridor. That’s just what he fucking needs. It must have fallen out of his pocket somewhere on his wild goose chase for Liam - he really should have mended that hole when he’d first spotted it a few weeks ago - but then, two feet away from the lift, he spots something shiny on the floor. His key. 

God must be taking pity on him, he thinks, relief flooding his veins as he bends down to pick up the key, keeping it safely in his hands as he spins on the spot and heads back to his room. Maybe this is his karmic payout for having to do Marcus’s job for him  _ yet again,  _ for having to deal with a grouchy Noel, or for just having to deal with Liam in general. God knows Alan must be building up enough good karma to send him straight to heaven, no matter how many drugs he’s taken.

He’s slotting his key into the lock when Noel’s door opens, and Liam saunters out. 

Alan’s fingers falter, slipping on the key as a shock of something sharp courses through his veins. Liam, for his part, doesn’t look too bothered, just throws Alan a nonchalant glance as he closes the door behind him, and says: “Where’s this interview, then?” Alan blinks at him. 

“Uh, down in the bar,” he says, but it feels like someone else is saying the words. Liam grins. 

“Fucking get in,” he says happily, and then he’s off, ambling down the corridor with his hands in his pockets. Alan stares at him, watches him go all the way until he’s turned the corner, heart beating ten times faster than it should be, key hanging limply in his hand as he gazes blankly at the now-empty corridor. 

It can’t be. That  _ can’t _ be. There’s no way that the numbers one and one that Alan’s been handed are adding up to two. They just- they can’t be. 

_ Well, _ a little voice in his head says,  _ you  _ did _ hear- and Noel  _ did _ say- _ but he stamps on it, shakes his head and pushes the thoughts away as a searing hot stab of fear slashes at his gut. No. It’s not- it can’t be. It isn’t. It  _ can’t _ be. 

There’s only one other explanation for it, Alan thinks, as he turns back to the door and unlocks it with trembling fingers, and his stomach sinks. There’s only one other reason he would have heard Noel moaning, would have heard him say  _ Liam’s sucking me off,  _ and that’s that he’s hallucinating.

He’s got to get sober. 

\-------

**+1.**

His stint in rehab hadn’t been  _ fun,  _ exactly, but it had been a brief respite from having to deal with Oasis, so it’s all swings and roundabouts. He feels so much better for it, though, clearer and sharper and more focused, and with every day that passes it gets easier and easier to ignore the itching desire to reach for a drink. Everyone’s been fairly respectful - at least, as respectful as they get, which is only gently ribbing him when he turns down a night out - and he can finally fucking sleep again, doesn’t have to drink himself into a blackout and then wake himself up with coke again.

He feels like he’s finally able to do his job properly, and it feels fucking _good._ The longer he’s sober, the less he wants to be intoxicated, and the more he realises _God, I wasn’t actually having a good time, was I?_ He barely remembers most of ‘93, only remembers snippets of the biggest highs of ‘94, and it feels like he’s really seeing the world for the first time. And it’s good, he thinks, smiling as he stretches out across the back of the sofa, letting the story Bonehead’s telling about Noel and Richard Ashcroft wash over him. It feels like he’s himself again, a person that he’d sort of forgotten existed somewhere in the shell of drugs and alcohol.

“How long ‘til we’re on?” Guigsy pipes up, as Bonehead’s gesturing wildly to describe exactly how the taps in the hotel bar got smashed, and Marcus glances at his watch. 

“Half an hour,” he says. “We should probably get the Gallaghers back.” 

“Why, where’ve they gone?” Alan asks. 

“For a fag and some fresh air,” Marcus says. He looks tired, Alan realises, all bags and lines and dark shadows, fingers curled almost listlessly around the bottle in his hand. Fucking hell, is this what Alan used to look like? Marcus looks like he needs a fucking decade-long break.

“I’ll get them,” Alan says, setting his water down on the coffee table in front of them and getting to his feet. 

“You’re a fucking godsend, Alan, you know that?” Marcus says, relief colouring his exhausted words, and Alan laughs. 

“Don’t think I won’t be cashing in on it,” he tells Marcus, who just smiles wearily at him as he heads out of the room. 

It’s not a big venue - at least, not as big as they’re getting all-too-used to playing - so he finds his way out fairly easily, only having to stop one person to ask whether he’s going in the right direction. There are a few people milling around outside, harassed-looking roadies and bored-looking groupies but no sign of either Noel or Liam. 

Fantastic, Alan thinks bitterly, as he turns on his heel and heads back inside. Half an hour to stage and  _ both _ of them have gone missing. 

Backstage is always crowded, full of roadies and crew and people from the venue shouting and looking at clipboards and bustling around, so Alan’s fairly confident he’ll find someone who’s seen the two of them before too long - after all, it’s not like you can miss one Gallagher, let alone both of them. The first roadie he stops has no idea, and nor does the second, and he’s frowning by the time he’s asked the stage manager, who just shrugs and tells him  _ nope, sorry, haven’t seen them.  _

They must have snuck off somewhere, he thinks, as he sets off down one of the smaller corridors leading off from the main arterial road backstage. Probably doing drugs, the little cunts, because Marcus had shepherded them straight from the hotel to an interview and then to the venue, which hasn’t given any of them time to do any more than down a few beers along the way. They’re not in any of the rooms down here, though, although Alan does accidentally barge into the dressing room of the opening act and get caught in uncomfortable conversation for a solid two minutes before he can make his excuses and head back to the main corridor. They’re not in the toilets, either, and Alan’s just starting to think  _ maybe they’ve just sacked it off, slipped out of the venue and fucked off somewhere  _ when he hears a quiet moan and a  _ shh _ from a room at the very end of the tiny corridor that’s he’s just poked his head into perfunctorily, not really expecting anything of it. 

He frowns, and steps into the corridor - more of a large alcove, really, just a little extra bit off the smaller corridor he’s just been checking every room of - and edges towards the room at the back, stomach feeling uncomfortably tight all of a sudden, like his instincts are screaming _get out, get out, get out_ at him. It’s got one of those doors with a window in it, like his old classrooms at school, and if he approaches the door at the right angle he’ll be able to see what’s going on without whoever’s inside being able to see him. He’s not sure why he doesn’t want to be seen - it’s not like he’s never heard whichever of the brothers might be in here having sex before - but there’s something visceral in him that’s screaming at him to run, some kind of intuition that tells him _stop, stop, stop._

He doesn’t, though. He edges closer and closer, heart hammering out of his chest, until he’s positioned right outside the door, and then cranes his head to look in. 

It takes a moment to make out what he’s looking at, because the light isn’t on in the room, but if he squints, he can make out two sets of bare legs, two oversized jumpers, two heads of short, brown hair. One person’s got their back to the wall and their thighs wrapped around the other person’s waist, and as Alan’s eyes adjust to the dim light he sees motion, sees the way the person who isn’t pressed against the wall is thrusting upwards, sees a brief glimpse of what is unmistakably a cock sliding in and out of the other person. 

His eyes travel up, following the line of the arms of the person holding the other person up - it’s two blokes, Alan’s sure of it by the time he gets to their throats - until he gets to their faces, and his stomach bottoms out. 

Their foreheads are pressed together, lips parted, breathing heavily as they stare at each other, eyes locked together with the heat and weight of their gazes. It’s not the best angle, and Alan can’t quite see half of one of their faces, but it’s enough for him to see two all too well-known sets of blue eyes, two sweeping sets of eyelashes, two thick sets of eyebrows, two familiar sets of full, pink lips. There’s no mistaking them, even though Alan blinks, closes his eyes, opens them, and blinks again, desperately trying to change what his eyes are seeing. 

It’s Noel and Liam. 

Liam, back pressed against the wall, legs wrapped around his older brother’s waist, hands scrabbling at his back as his eyes half-flutter shut and then get forced open again, biting on his lip so as not to make a sound. Noel, concentration and desire etched on his features in equal measure, eyes boring into Liam’s like he’s trying to make a home in them, breath catching slightly as he fucks Liam down on his cock.

Because that’s what they’re doing. They’re fucking. 

Alan should look away - should probably ram the door open and scream at the two of them, or maybe call the police, or something - but can’t. He feels like someone’s sitting on his chest, constricting his heart and lungs, maybe standing on his feet, too, stopping him from running away. He’s frozen, suspended in a moment in time as the rest of the world keeps turning, as Noel and Liam keep fucking. 

The shock is finally starting to ebb a little, starting to give way to a flurry of thoughts that have been held back by the sheer, cold stupefaction that’s been glazing over Alan’s mind as it tries to make sense of what his eyes are seeing. What the fuck are they thinking? What the fuck is wrong with them? How fucking long has this been going on? What the  _ fuck? _

A small noise makes him look up sharply, look back at their faces, which somehow makes him feel even sicker than watching Noel’s cock in Liam does; irrefutable evidence of what he’s seeing, of  _ who _ he’s seeing. Liam’s got his head tipped back now, eyes closed as he tries to muffle his little moans and groans, biting them off as they trip off his tongue, and Noel presses his face against Liam’s throat, mouthing kisses into the pale skin there. It looks practiced, Alan thinks dimly, as he watches Liam’s lips part in a silent groan. This isn’t the first time they’ve done this. Noel knows exactly where to put his lips, exactly how hard to suck and bite and how to flick his tongue in a way that has Liam groaning for real, soft and choked and laced with so much desire that it makes Alan’s head spin. These are well-worn movements, muscle-memory motions. 

But they’re  _ brothers. _ They  _ can’t _ be fucking. They’re fucking  _ brothers,  _ and they hate each other half the time. They’re  _ brothers. _ It doesn’t make any  _ sense. _

Until it does. Until Liam brings his head back down, far enough apart from Noel’s this time that Alan can see the both of them clearly, and he breathes out, just about loud enough for Alan to make out  _ Noely. _ And Noel’s dark eyes soften, and he brings one hand up to Liam’s jaw, thumb stroking gently across the stubbled skin there, and Alan’s world shifts a few inches to the right, because suddenly, it makes sense. 

They’re in love. 

They’re in love, and they’re brothers. 

They’re fucking crazy. They’re absolutely fucking crazy, Alan thinks dazedly, watching as Liam’s lips curve up and as Noel smiles back and as they lean into each other, tilting their heads in a way that makes it all too obvious how intimately they know each other’s bodies, kissing in a way that’s slow and filthy but tinged with tenderness, with familiarity, with love. They’re putting their whole lives and everyone else’s on the line, for this. For each other. 

And then Liam breaks the kiss, gasps something that’s a little too loud and sounds far too much like  _ Noel, I’m gonna come, I’m gonna- _ and it’s like the words are a knife, cutting Alan free from the spot he’s been tied to. He turns on his heel, nigh on sprints back down the corridor, out of the smaller one it leads into and out into the main hallway, ducking into another corridor a hundred metres or so away just to catch his breath. His palms are clammy, and his heart is pounding, and his head is spinning, and every breath he takes feels like it’s tainted somehow, like the burden sitting heavily on his lungs is now going to stain his every exhale.

Because Alan had left. He’d had the opportunity to walk in, to confront them, to report them, to tell someone, but he hadn’t. He’d walked away. 

It doesn’t make the weight on his chest any lighter, and it doesn’t make his stomach stop churning, but it feels like a cruel inevitability of Alan’s perhaps-misguided love for them. They’re fucking mad, the both of them - Noel, all his bitterness and cruelty and insatiable thirst for power, and Liam, all his petulance and wild nature and disregard for decency in any shape or form - but they’re still his band. They’re insane, and they’re a fucking nightmare, and they make Alan want to tear his rapidly-thinning hair out, but they’re his band, and he’ll protect them at all costs. Even if that means keeping this unthinkable secret for them. 

Plus, he thinks, as he heaves himself off the wall and wobbles for a moment, steadying himself with a hand against the cool brick, it’s not like he has much of a choice, even if he’d wanted to give them up. They’re his livelihood, aren’t they? All those songs Noel writes - oh, fuck, are they about Liam? No, fuck, he’s not going to think about that now, not when he’s lurching back down the corridor feeling unsteadier than he ever did on drink or drugs - they pay his bills, keep his beloved record company going. Even if Alan didn’t love the two of them, he wouldn’t tell. 

He’s almost forgotten the reason he’d actually gone looking for Noel and Liam until he gets back into the dressing room and gets an expectant look from Marcus, sees Bonehead doing his weird little jump in the corner and Guigsy stretching out across the sofa. Oh, fuck. They’re on stage in a few minutes. 

“Well?” Marcus says. 

“Oh,” Alan says, and swallows, trying to clear the lump in his throat. “I, uh. Couldn’t find them.” Marcus’s face drops. 

“Are you fucking kidding me?” he demands, both anger and panic lacing his tone. “They’re on in ten.” 

“I’m sure they’ll-” Alan starts, but he’s cut off by the door slamming open and Noel and Liam walking in. The sight of them makes Alan’s stomach turn all over again, makes him swallow back bile as he thinks of the reason for those pink cheeks, for the soft sparkle in Liam’s eyes, for the calm, carefree angle of Noel’s shoulders, and he has to turn away, sits down heavily on a chair and picks up his glass of water with trembling fingers. 

“Where the fuck have you been?” Marcus demands, and Noel throws him an almost bored glance. 

“Taking drugs,” he says. “Fuck d’you think?” 

“You’re onstage in ten,” Marcus says, and Noel shrugs. 

“Here now, aren’t we?” he says, and picks two beers up off the table, handing one to Liam without another word. Alan watches as their fingers brush against each other for the briefest of moments, watches as their eyes lock for a split second, so quick that if Alan hadn’t been looking he wouldn’t have spotted it, and it makes his heart lurch as he thinks  _ how many other looks have I missed? How many other touches?  _ God, if they’re going to do this and keep it a secret, they’re going to have to be smarter about it, quieter about it, can’t be disappearing and returning together like that. Someone else might notice, someone who might not keep it quiet, and where the fuck would they be then?

Liam throws himself down on the sofa, like they don’t have ten minutes until they have to be onstage, and takes a long swig from his beer as he blinks over at Guigsy and Bonehead, now embroiled in a heated discussion about football. Noel skirts around the edge of the sofa, presses his shoe hard against Liam’s thigh to push him far over enough that Noel’s got room to sit down, too, and raises his own can of beer to his mouth. As he tips his head back, downing about half of the beer at once, his eyes flit lightly from Bonehead and Guigsy to Tony to Alan to Marcus, and then immediately slide back over and freeze on Alan. 

He knows. Alan can see that he knows that Alan knows almost instantly, can see it in the way his shoulders stiffen and his eyes harden and a brief, tiny flash of panic crosses his face before he schools his features back into something impassive and slowly pulls the can of beer away from his lips. Alan can’t look away, can’t follow Noel’s lead and force the cluster of conflicting emotions out of his eyes and the tension out of the tightness of his mouth, and it makes Noel’s blue eyes turn to ice, cold and inhospitable. 

Oh, fuck, Alan thinks, as he swallows, and blinks at Noel. Noel knows that he knows, and he’s trying to figure out how to deal with Alan.

What the fuck is Alan supposed to do? It’s not like he can say  _ don’t worry, mate, I’ll keep your little incest secret _ \- there are still at least seven other people in the room, and they’re going to get chivvied onstage in a few moments, and besides all that, Alan doesn’t think he can bring himself to say anything that crude, doesn’t think he can really admit to himself that  _ that’s _ the burden he’s choosing to carry. 

But Noel’s still staring at him with that frostiness in his eyes, those  _ I’m hatching a plan _ lines on his forehead, so Alan’s got to say  _ something, _ got to let Noel know that he’s not going to do anything with the information, that he’s - on some fucked-up, twisted level - okay with it. So he swallows, inclines his head at where Liam and Noel are sat a little too close together, and says: 

“‘S nice to see the two of you getting on.” 

Noel blinks at him. He blinks once, twice, and Alan tries not to hold his breath as he holds Noel’s gaze, hopes Noel can’t see the way his fingers are shaking on the glass of water still in his hands. Noel never gives anything away, so Alan can’t even watch him weigh up Alan’s words, just has to trust that  _ something’s _ happening behind that carefully-curated blankness in his eyes. It feels like a fucking eternity of silence is passing while the rest of the room keeps laughing and joking and shouting, and then Noel raises one eyebrow at him. 

“Don’t get used to it,” he says, and his voice is too calm and even, but it’s not cold, and Alan almost sags back into the chair with the force of the relief that punches its way through his body. 

Alan knows, and Noel knows that Alan knows. Alan’s going to keep it a secret, and Noel trusts him to. For now, at least. 

Alan looks away, then, heart pounding as he looks over at Marcus, who’s deep in conversation with Maggie, something about  _ New York _ and  _ second date _ that washes right over Alan as he tries to even out his breathing. Fucking hell, he thinks, bringing his glass of water to his lips just for something to do. He’s never wished he could get coked up to his eyeballs and forget everything he’s ever known as much as he does now. 

The door opens and someone comes in and says  _ five minutes, _ which is the band’s cue to start getting themselves together and heading for the stage. Bonehead and Guigsy, still arguing about something to do with Old Trafford, head for the door, and Liam heaves himself to his feet as Tony spins on the spot, asking whether anyone’s seen the sticks he was playing around with. Noel downs the rest of his beer before getting up, following Liam around the sofa and out of the door, and Alan gets up too, figuring he might as well watch from the sidelines tonight, give him something to take his mind off- well. The whole incest thing. 

Liam gets involved in the conversation between Bonehead and Guigsy, never one to turn down a spat about City versus United, and Noel starts talking to Marcus as they head to the stage, wanting to know something about the recording time they’re trying to book, but it suits Alan just fine. He’s happy to wander at the back of the group in a daze, muscle memory guiding him along as his mind remains firmly detached from his body. 

They’re handed their instruments as they get to the stage, and Noel tells Tony something with a firm expression - probably  _ stop being so fucking shit at drumming, _ or something along those lines - and then they’re being ushered on to deafening screams from the audience. Alan watches each of them in turn, the way Tony sort of creeps over to his drums, the way Guigsy heads straight over to his amps, the way Bonehead’s frowning down at some cables at his feet, the way Noel strides onto the stage, the way Liam saunters in his wake. He doesn’t look at Noel as he passes him on his way to the microphone, and Noel doesn’t look at him, but Alan gets chills all the same because he can  _ sense _ it now, can  _ feel _ that tension crackling between the two of them that he’d always dismissed as sibling rivalry or brotherly conflict but now knows is all that and more. 

He tries not to watch the two of them as they kick into their first song, tries to focus on Guigsy or Bonehead or even crane his neck and look over at Tony, but it’s impossible not to be drawn to Liam’s magnetism, completely futile to try and get through the whole show without his eyes being dragged over to centre stage. He makes it all the way to Live Forever without looking at the both of them, though, until he sees Liam shift almost imperceptibly as he sings  _ maybe you’re the same as me, _ sees his head turn to the left and Noel’s turn to the right. It’s one of those moments he’s seen before, one of those brief looks they often share on stage, but Alan feels like he’s seeing it for the first time, like someone’s removed the veil from over his eyes and let him see it all in brilliant technicolour. 

_ We see things they’ll never see, _ Liam sings, and he’s still looking at Noel, and Noel’s still looking back. Liam’s voice is the one ringing out across the crowd, full and rich and coarse, but it’s Noel’s words that Alan’s hearing, and when Noel leans in and sings  _ you and I are gonna live forever,  _ eyes now back on the crowd but body angled all the way to face Liam, Alan feels like he’s hearing the song for the first time too. 

It should feel a lot more sickening than it does, Alan thinks, when it all clicks into place, but nothing about it heightens the vague queasiness that’s been prickling under his skin for the past hour. It just seems to sort of make sense. Of course the song’s about Liam; how could Alan have ever thought anything else? 

The moment doesn’t last long, maybe five, six seconds before Liam also turns back and faces the crowd again, but it’s enough for Alan to know that what he saw back there, in that little room somewhere in the labyrinth that is the backstage of this venue, was what he thought it was. 

Love. They’re in love. 

And maybe it’s not the right kind of love for brothers, maybe it’s a little nauseating and a lot discomfiting, but as Alan watches Liam sing out the words Noel had written for him he can’t help but see a sort of twisted, dark beauty to it. They’re in love, the hopeless idiots, and even though it makes Alan’s stomach turn, it also softens his heart a little. They’re in love, and nobody can ever know. 

He leans back, rests his head against the pole he’s standing next to, and lets himself watch Liam, hands behind his back, voice echoing around the room. There’s a new melancholy to the song, a bitter undertone to the optimism of it that Alan’s never noticed before but hears ringing loud and clear when Liam sings  _ maybe I will never be all the things that I wanna be  _ over the sound of Noel’s guitar. The two of them, light and dark, day and night, yin and yang, woven together to become one coherent fabric that Alan looks at and wonders how he never saw before. He sees those invisible threads tying the two of them together, now, sees them amongst the visible fibres of derision and rivalry and family that bind the two of them to each other, and thinks  _ of course.  _ It’s the dark matter that makes up Noel and Liam; it has to exist, for the two of them to live in the way they do, but it can’t be seen. 

And, Alan thinks, as the song draws to a close, he might be the only one who’s discovered the formula to find it, but he’ll burn it to keep them safe. The secret might not be his, but he’ll shoulder the burden all the same. 

(The next time he sees Liam glancing over at Noel, he turns away. Let them have their privacy, he thinks. Let them have their love.) 


End file.
